Try the CodeWeaver utility that will make it possible to run Office 97 (2000? don't know) and continue to run it over Linux. That solution should be good for a few years.
No unfamiliar interfacing and it'll handle.DOC files by definition. That's what I'm planning to do as an individual when I convert this workstation to Linux while I wait for OpenOffice / StarOffice or something to do what I want it to do as an office suite. No problem with licensing as long as you've got the original 'proof of ownership' docs, and if you don't, you're asking for trouble from BSA anyway.
My brief experience with StarOffice 5.0 was sufficiently unpleasant that I think I'll wait for the next release version after the new/current one before I will even look at it again.
Most people are not going to share their favorite Webmail services here for fear that they'll get slashdotted and that they'll be forced immediately to go to a pay-for-play solution.
You'll probably find that 2/3 of the listings either don't work or went to pay-for-pay... but that still leaves plenty of places to replace hotmail.
There are also a shitload of sites with free website databases.
I know this because I had to replace my free webmail account on onebox some months ago when they went to a pay system. However, finding one that supported the service I most needed, remote notification of incoming mail to my real account so I won't have to log in every time I get spammed was very difficult. Finding that took several hours. Finding one that supports POP3 will take a while. If you just want a simple free webmail box, that should take just a few minutes.
We have a technical term on the Net to describe people like you. The word is tard. Though Micro$hill might be more accurate.
If hotmail had sent out a mailing to all its members telling them a couple of weeks in advance of their policy change.
If hotmail didn't have a privacy policy posted on their site that said specifically that they wouldn't do this without a user's permission, and clicking a user's checkboxes for him only counts as permission in the minds of some Micro$hit employees and you
Then this would be the usual bitching about drastic TOS changes in a free service. Micro$hit sneaked these changes in without warning or notice. Only an imbecile would describe this as ethical behavior.
Why don't you go back to debugging your copy of Windows XP Server and leave discussions of how an Internet business should conduct itself towards its user to your betters?
guess this kind of advances in technology will make video evidence inadmissible in the courts.
Afterall, with sufficient CPU power, anybody could make anybody talk about anything!
I think what's going to happen is that video will only be admitted with a chain of custody such is done with certain other kinds of evidence culminating in some LEO on the witness stand under oath swearing that he knows of his own knowledge the conditions the video was taken under and that he knows that the video has not been subject to any form of digital manipulation.
This probably should have been done years ago.I suspect that one can get comparable results manually NOW using frame-by-frame editing if enough time is put in on it by someone of the requisite skill. I believe the technology to handle the audio side of making people say things that would greatly surprise them was discussed here a while ago.
Anyone who has access to the MIT setup who would like to speed this process up is invited to make a commercial of the Supremes endorsing goatse.cx as a wholesome place for children to go and get it onto the Net.
I, for one, will be glad when someone invents a dry capacitor that can compete with lytics. Ever had one of those explode when you are working on a project? Gives my computer/gun analogy a whole new angle!
No, but when I worked as a test tech quite a few years ago, I did see some go off when plugging a PCB in for the first time. The assemblers put them in backwards. Fixing the multilayer board afterwards was an interesting experience.
If I buy a computer, and I keep using the same software that came out designed for said computer, and I take care of it, I don't keep it in humid environments, I don't let it overheat, etc, then I'm sure it will last long after I am dead too.
Don't bet on it. Those little metal cylindrical cans on the motherboard are generally electrolytic caps with a goo sort of electrolyte... they dry out after 10-20 years. Not sure about tantalum electrolytic chip caps.
I've been in touch with Geekpac. Based on my discussion with the guy at the other end of the geekpac contact address, they simply have absolutely no clue about the political process. .
The idea that knowing how the political process works if one wants to do anything with it means putting in the kind of study and intellectual labor that understanding the difference between BSD and Linux does is something that my discussion with them shows me that they just don't get.
They have the delusion that reasonable discussion with reasonable people who are focused on solving the real problems of America will get us what we need to survive as a technological economy. It's way too late for 'constructive engagement'.
This isn't a matter of taking advice from the wrong people, it's sort of obvious that they didn't have sense enough to buy any clue from anybody competent.
Since they don't have the clues they need, they need to buy them from somebody like James Carville or Richard Reed.
There's a war on, guys and gals. We are losing it.
They're well intentioned idiots at best. In fact, the term "useful idiots" would probably be fair. When I say useful, I don't mean to us.
At best, they'll raise money from a few equally clueless geeks who want to "fight the good fight"... they may even be able to visit a few elected officials.
With the same impact high-tech "dog and pony" shows of the sort various high-tech megacorps gave Congresspeople before they discovered that in order to buy influence, they had to spend actual money. The "geeks" will be treated with politeness and respect just as their high-tech corporate predecessors were. And will be forgotten right after they leave.
Forget "fighting the good fight", this is a win at all costs issue. We can afford to elect a few people who'll vote right on this issue and who vote "wrong" on everything else. I'm telling my gay friends that if they have to vote for Jesse Helms (assuming he's opposing Hollings) against a Disney supporter, hold their noses and vote for him. I'm telling women and pagans to do the same.
There is a place for peace, love, and brotherhood in all this. For instance, to make this work, Microsoft has to be brought on board. If the thought of this makes you want to puke into your keyboard, get it over with.
"Only a fool fights in a burning house."
some Klingon from the original StarTrek
Hey, guys, Hollywood has set our house afire.
With money in our pockets, we can fight the people we might regret being associated with in order to win on the environent and human rights other than the ones regarding our ability to use our computers and the Net. (they screw us on CBDTPA, we can break them after we make them)
We must have effective political representation. Geekpac ain't it and in my judgement, can't be turned into an effective political force. The name itself should have been a dead giveaway to anyone thinking of participating. They do understand the issues. It's the what the hell to do about it that they don't get and probably can't.
If a viable group interested in effectively fighting Hollywood appears, I'll be happy to join and promote it. Viable means among other things, access to the checkbooks of Silicon Valley millionaires who will have to do business anywhere but the USA if they want to keep working if the "alphabet soup" bills are allowed to become law. While perhaps some would prefer having an excuse to retire, those who know what's going on are probably looking for an effective way to come out and fight.
Geekpac probably won't get a single cent out of the people we need most to make high-tech a credible political force. Tim Draper (Silicon Valley major VC player) got his own ass kicked by trying the reasonable approach with a voucher initiative. He lost $20M(estimated) and the election.
If anybody who has connections to Silicon Valley money would like to work them on behalf of our common survival in the form of a PAC/mass action political organization, my e-mail address is here, use it.
This time, I'm sure that the money is out there. Ask any of the major corporate suits who got reamed by Hollings and company in the hearings discussing SSSCA. I'm sure they'd love to get a piece of the Senators who harassed them.
That's something Geekpac isn't set up to do for them and for us and I'm certain they know it.
Geekpac has done an excellent job of defining the issues in more or less comprehensible form. The heavy lifting has got to be done by political operatives capable of simplifying their points into sound bites.
If Geekpac is really the best the high-tech community can do, figure out where Microsoft and Sun and IBM will be moving and if need be, learn the native language.
If we've got money in our pockets, we can fight things like oil refineries on our coastlines and the rest of the energy industry political agenda and the Religious Right agenda with a decent chance of winning.
The alphabet soup legislation in Congress will eliminate our ability to make this money and for practical purposes, our ability to make meaningful political statements.
We are fortunate that at least we have one major political party taking our side on this issue because the entertainment media didn't think the GOP worth buying.
If we're to have a chance at economic survival and probably, the survival of democracy of America, we have to hold our nose and vote our wallets. Ignore their positions on abortion, the environment, civil rights for gays, ignore everything but the issues that matter to our survival as a nation.
Hollywood started this fight.
Our options are to win it or to migrate to wherever else in the world high-tech industry will be moving to and watch America slide into the Third World.
The good news: Targeting one or two key Democrats isn't going to change the balance of power all that much. It will mainly scare the hell out of those that Hollywood bought so cheaply.
I hear a fair number of Intel executives who have been abused are pretty steamed. Surely, people like Mr. Groves and friends have a few loose pennies for retaliation. Particularly since it is their livlihoods too. Not to mention all of the other technology executives who might see their continued existance at stake.
Excellent. Let me add that TechNet,the PAC for major suits is mainly a lobbying organization intended for things like making sure H1B gets renewed...
The high-tech community has a chance of turning our anger and fear into real political power. Who around here knows some of the suits that have had the joy of trying to explain why destructive regulation of technology is A BAD THING to clueless elected officials?
I think they are a logical place to start passing the hat.
The problem is that Senator Disney's consituency is in South Carolina.
The people who bought his votes are from California. The entertainment industry doesn't have any sort of noticeable presence in SC. There's nothing like telling the voters that their representative has been bought by a bunch of 'furriners' to make them wonder who he's working for.
I'd also say that there are a lot more IT professionals (if you include MCSEs) in SC than 5... if one goes into a small business in SC, one sees computers just like anywhere else in the USA.
Speaking as a Californian, I regard targeting Dianne Feinstein as a wonderful idea.
The problem is money in either case. I think a PAC intended for EFFECTIVE political action... one intended to turn our enemies into roadkill could get the same kind of support from both rank and file AND from manufacturers that the NRA does and gets the same kind of respect that the NRA does.
I regared single issue politics as divisive, but I think that's the price we have to pay as a nation and a high-tech community for economic survival.
We can consciously decide to play hardball or we can "fight the good fight" and get our asses kicked and those of us who manage to emigrate to where the new high-tech action is can discuss the "good old days" of American IT over a beer.
Still, I think this guy underestimates how easy/cheap it would be. I'd donate a few bucks to such a PAC, but I'm not rich.
These bills are just as big a threat to the IT megacorporations as they are to us.
Hint:In ths SSSCA hearings, Microsoft, IBM, Apple and a long list of the biggest names in high tech testified against the bill. How often are these companies on the same side of anything?
Their VPs had to sit and take having ignorant assholes like Hollings and Feinstein accuse them of being pro-piracy, pro-terrorism, and anti-American. You don't think these companies and their executives as individuals wouldn't be willing contribute towards an effort to give these crapheads what they deserve?
You don't think the high-tech companies of America don't want enough political power to keep the Feds out of their business and ours? This is a crusade I'd sign on to even if Bill Gates were leading it and the only candidates that could be found were Religious Right troglodytes.
if you pick on one of Hollywood's bought and paid for politicians, you are **picking on Hollywood**. There is no way that we could ever do political ads that are as slick, as decietful, and unfortunately, as effective as they could
You apparently are under the delusion that the only talent capable of making superior commercials in in Hollywood. Do you also believe that the only people capable of writing workable operating systems are in Redmond? If you do, what are you doing here?
There are plenty of unknown independents in media who don't like the monopolies any more than we do. There are plenty of name musicians who know they've been screwed by major labels. I don't know we can get superior entertainment talent both in front of and behind the camera... but I am certain we can get parity.
I'd back Courtney Love against Cher for star appeal any day... she's declared open season on the record industry. She's just the first example that came to mind... and people under 30 are a lot more likely to remember who she is than Cher.
"It's the economy, stupid!"
More to the point, it's them or us. If you're willing to lie there and get raped without even trying to fight, that's up to you.
and they would retaliate. Does anyone believe they are somehow above lying and namecalling?
And this scares you for what reason? Given equal money, the truth is easier to sell.
Mobilization of the high tech community as a whole means we can outraise and outspend Hollywood. Our economic base is over 10x theirs, our employment base is a hell of a lot bigger.
You think that all of South Carolina does their accounting with pencil and paper?You think there are no South Carolina Internet servers? Hey, they may be Southern but that doesn't make them Stone Age or stupid. Get the point across to them that their beloved incumbent will ratfuck their part of the national economy, he will lose.
This isn't about the GeekPAC approach of "fighting the good fight" and being noble in defeat, this is about winning at any price.
The alphabet soup bills being rammed up our collective asses are a threat to our jobs, to our economy, to any future our kids might have. Basically, the ultimate impact of these bills is to hold any future technology we may create hostage to whatever the hell the entertainment industry decides is in their interests, not ours.
I am indeed willing to go single issue, to allow this issue to decide my vote if need be. Hollywood has put the survival of high technology on the line and I see no reason to take it.
This time around, abortion and environment and civil rights have to take a back seat, the entertainment industry bought the Democratic party dirt cheap. They didn't have sense enough to buy the GOP as well. I propose we make them pay for that mistake.
I hope I'm not the only person to have been saying in private what Hal Plotkin has said in public.
"Growing digital rights movement needs to put some political heads on stakes -- fast" says it all.
Fuck being polite and friendly about this. We can kick ass and take names or we can figure on moving overseas if we want to continue creating.
I've made my choice. It's time to make yours.
If GeekPAC figures out what its good for, we can use it to implemet our will against the Senators from Disney. If they can't, we need new organizations run by the poltically competent.
Let's get beyond the FUD here. Passport is being considered as a means to authenticate users of US government services online. Nothing more. This is a far cry from a "national ID," which implies that citizens are required to have it. When was the last time you used US government services online? If the government wants to select Microsoft as a vendor for a particular service, I may think it's a bad business decision, but I don't think I can claim my rights are being violated.
So when Joe Scriptkiddie impersonates you to the IRS and has your income tax refund sent to his bank account and decides that you should confess to criminal tax evasion, you don't consider this a violation of your right to privacy? Why isn't your SSN and credit card number in your sig file, then?
Keeping this kind of privacy-authentication information in a way to create a "single point of failure" is bad enough.
Using Microsoft's technology for this given their well-known total incompetence in the area of computer security to collect and secure information ON BEHALF OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is so far beyond 'bad business decision' that I am not writing this for your benefit, you're either a clueless fuckhead or a Micro$hit employee.
I'm writing this to clarify what's at stake here to slashdotters with working brains.
my, what a big target you are
on
Time Travel
·
· Score: 1
If you haven't checked the guy's background AND checked his math with a full understanding of the relevant equations from which his work presumably derives, why the fuck should we take your opinion about whether or not this is a valid line of research seriously?
I am not in this position, either, so I attached an 'I don't know' tag to copies of the URL I just sent to my friends for reasons having to do with intellectual honesty.
All we know assuming the article is accurate is that reputable researchers both agree and disagree with the professor about this.
All your getting modded up to 5 shows is that at least 3 slashdotters didn't stay awake in any of their science classes long enough to catch a clue about scientific methodology.
In the course of writing a review for 8wire about the Belkin Sentry UPS, I discovered that in the UPS software, Belkin Sentry Bulldog that was originally shipped with the machine, the Web control/monitoring interface which was advertised as allowing control from anywhere did not mention it could be controlled by anybody, and the Web control software installed by default.
The default password access page could easily be bypassed by anyone who knew the directory tree and the IP address of the workstation / UPS.
This was fixed a few weeks after the article came out for some reason.
Take a careful look at the software for ANY Web-controlled devices (including routers and toasters) for ugly surprises before running it on your network.
I'm not entirely certain that the passenger is a dummy. There was a rumor floating around some years back that the first Russian missions allegedly "manned" by dummies actually were flying corpses, i.e. the life support systems didn't work as advertised.
Perhaps the Chinese had the same problem and decided to spin the PR the same way.
However, I hope this is not true and look forward to welcoming China to the "Man in Space" club.
Of course, it would be nice to know that NASA is responding with the nanotube-based space elevator project or an orbital-speed railgun to allow undercutting China's prices by a factor of a few hundred and their own current pricing by a factor of a few thousand.
Young people sign multimillion dollar contracts every day in the entertainment industry. One of my friends (a guitarist/songwriter) was offered on at 16. She turned it down and plans to sell her CDs via CD-on-demand.
Is there anybody on slashdot who believes that the inventors of the DMCA would take that kind of risk under circumstances where the kid could bail on the contract and leave the record company on the hook required to pull all the entertainer's albums out of stores because he/she changed his/her mind?
I hope the kid waits until his code has been distributed on a million or two Macs before he demands that his code be pulled.
I mean, c'mon, linking to a Wired article and then speaking endlessly about "opportunities for Republicans" doesn't sound like an informative article about the evils of the SSSCA.
I don't think it was intended to be. This reads more like an subtle unofficial comment / warning shot from the owner of Fox intended to let Hollings know that Fox is NOT part of the content provider coalition backing SSSCA and that any further support from Fox either in terms of favorable coverage or campaign contributions is at risk if Hollings doesn't pull the bill.
The most interesting thing about the article is that a major content provider allowed it to run, and probably went to a fair amount of trouble a writer with credentials who would be guaranteed to go after SSSCA and its author given the opportunity.
Perhaps they're mad at Disney, perhaps they decided that the results would be so unpopular that they didn't want to be part of a group of multinationals facing a very angry public.
Perhaps they read the SSSCA the same way as I do, as a bill mandating that all computers (including routers) carry crap components which will directly interfere with their usability, reliability, and stability AND with the functioning of the Internet.
I could be reading too much into this, but as I said, the most interesting fact is that it ran at all.
>As for "98lite" - I recommend AGAINST running it on Windows XP.
So does 98lite.
> If what you want is Windows 95, use Windows 95.
You have something against the idea of customizing an OS so it'll do what you want it to do? I want something that'll run the MS Office apps I'm using to communicate with the rest of the business world with a bit less overhead and more stability than 98SE out of the box.
Using 98lite, I got what I wanted. Office 97 runs fine and so do all the apps I have occasion to use. With respect to XP, while it might matter with respect to implementing an antitrust settlement, I could personally care less about 98lite being made to work with XP, while it's probably possible, my next upgrade to this box is to *nix (Lycoris looks good, but OpenBSD does, too). 98lite serves my needs pending my deciding that enough *nix apps are ready for me to make the switch.
Depends on what you're trying to do. It rather appears that Office 9.x runs fine even with the rendering engine trashed.
quote from the manual with 98lite
98micro (Professional Edition Only)
98mirco completely eliminates the Microsoft HTML engine (SHDOCVW.DLL, and MSHTML.DLL). You can not run any program that relies on this IE Engine; e.g. Outlook Express, FrontPage, and
MS Money are out. But a system with Apache, Netscape, Opera, Pegasus Mail, Gravity, Agent etc. would be just fine! Microsoft Office 97 will install and run beautifully under 98micro!
Our tests and diagnostics suggests that 98micro can be 15% to
20% faster than a stock Windows 98 installation.
See the 98lite.net Performance Page
http://www.98lite.net/perform.html
for details.
If you find an application that does not work under 98micro,
it's possible that:
it requires the MS HTML Engine and you'll have to abandon that
application or use the ShellSwap feature of 98lite to swap to
a shell containing the IE engine (SLEEK, CHUBBY, or
OVERWEIGHT)
a file is simply missing; you may be able to isolate the
problem to the specific file and reinstall it (this is
common and most often the result of uninstalling applications)
There's a script at http://www.98lite.net called IEradicator which will zap MSIE from Windows 9.x / ME / 2000 using the Windows Installer. I've had an MSIE-free Windows machine for years. My experience is that Windows is stabler and faster without IE as an OS component. I wouldn't even consider installing these Windows operating systems now without removing MSIE as soon as the Windows install completes.
I use Opera and Netscape instead.
If you're running Windows 9.x-2000, I suggest you back up your machine completely and then give the MSIE install a try. You should get both satisfactory proof that Ballmer lied AND a better-running computer. Usual warning, your mileage may vary...
As for XP, while MS may have done a better job at kludging IE into the OS to make it harder to untangle this time, I'm sure a development contract to the people at 98lite plus access to the Windows API will result in a very fast and clean solution to the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
No unfamiliar interfacing and it'll handle .DOC files by definition. That's what I'm planning to do as an individual when I convert this workstation to Linux while I wait for OpenOffice / StarOffice or something to do what I want it to do as an office suite. No problem with licensing as long as you've got the original 'proof of ownership' docs, and if you don't, you're asking for trouble from BSA anyway.
My brief experience with StarOffice 5.0 was sufficiently unpleasant that I think I'll wait for the next release version after the new/current one before I will even look at it again.
I'd say go to http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet / -mail/Free/Web-Based?tc=1/... I found "Searched within the category Google Directory for free webmail. Results 1 - 10 of about 1,030"
You'll probably find that 2/3 of the listings either don't work or went to pay-for-pay... but that still leaves plenty of places to replace hotmail.
There are also a shitload of sites with free website databases.
I know this because I had to replace my free webmail account on onebox some months ago when they went to a pay system. However, finding one that supported the service I most needed, remote notification of incoming mail to my real account so I won't have to log in every time I get spammed was very difficult. Finding that took several hours. Finding one that supports POP3 will take a while. If you just want a simple free webmail box, that should take just a few minutes.
Then this would be the usual bitching about drastic TOS changes in a free service. Micro$hit sneaked these changes in without warning or notice. Only an imbecile would describe this as ethical behavior.
Why don't you go back to debugging your copy of Windows XP Server and leave discussions of how an Internet business should conduct itself towards its user to your betters?
Sounds like you haven't read any of their current product EULAs lately.
LEO = Law Enforcement Officer
This probably should have been done years ago.I suspect that one can get comparable results manually NOW using frame-by-frame editing if enough time is put in on it by someone of the requisite skill. I believe the technology to handle the audio side of making people say things that would greatly surprise them was discussed here a while ago.
Anyone who has access to the MIT setup who would like to speed this process up is invited to make a commercial of the Supremes endorsing goatse.cx as a wholesome place for children to go and get it onto the Net.
Don't bet on it. Those little metal cylindrical cans on the motherboard are generally electrolytic caps with a goo sort of electrolyte... they dry out after 10-20 years. Not sure about tantalum electrolytic chip caps.
Most data sheets and application notes are downloadable pdfs at the vendor site. If you know what chip vendors you need, who needs a search engine?
The idea that knowing how the political process works if one wants to do anything with it means putting in the kind of study and intellectual labor that understanding the difference between BSD and Linux does is something that my discussion with them shows me that they just don't get.
They have the delusion that reasonable discussion with reasonable people who are focused on solving the real problems of America will get us what we need to survive as a technological economy. It's way too late for 'constructive engagement'.
This isn't a matter of taking advice from the wrong people, it's sort of obvious that they didn't have sense enough to buy any clue from anybody competent.
Since they don't have the clues they need, they need to buy them from somebody like James Carville or Richard Reed. There's a war on, guys and gals. We are losing it.
They're well intentioned idiots at best. In fact, the term "useful idiots" would probably be fair. When I say useful, I don't mean to us.
At best, they'll raise money from a few equally clueless geeks who want to "fight the good fight"... they may even be able to visit a few elected officials.
With the same impact high-tech "dog and pony" shows of the sort various high-tech megacorps gave Congresspeople before they discovered that in order to buy influence, they had to spend actual money. The "geeks" will be treated with politeness and respect just as their high-tech corporate predecessors were. And will be forgotten right after they leave.
Forget "fighting the good fight", this is a win at all costs issue. We can afford to elect a few people who'll vote right on this issue and who vote "wrong" on everything else. I'm telling my gay friends that if they have to vote for Jesse Helms (assuming he's opposing Hollings) against a Disney supporter, hold their noses and vote for him. I'm telling women and pagans to do the same.
There is a place for peace, love, and brotherhood in all this. For instance, to make this work, Microsoft has to be brought on board. If the thought of this makes you want to puke into your keyboard, get it over with.
"Only a fool fights in a burning house."
some Klingon from the original StarTrek
Hey, guys, Hollywood has set our house afire.
With money in our pockets, we can fight the people we might regret being associated with in order to win on the environent and human rights other than the ones regarding our ability to use our computers and the Net. (they screw us on CBDTPA, we can break them after we make them)
We must have effective political representation. Geekpac ain't it and in my judgement, can't be turned into an effective political force. The name itself should have been a dead giveaway to anyone thinking of participating. They do understand the issues. It's the what the hell to do about it that they don't get and probably can't.
If a viable group interested in effectively fighting Hollywood appears, I'll be happy to join and promote it. Viable means among other things, access to the checkbooks of Silicon Valley millionaires who will have to do business anywhere but the USA if they want to keep working if the "alphabet soup" bills are allowed to become law. While perhaps some would prefer having an excuse to retire, those who know what's going on are probably looking for an effective way to come out and fight.
Geekpac probably won't get a single cent out of the people we need most to make high-tech a credible political force. Tim Draper (Silicon Valley major VC player) got his own ass kicked by trying the reasonable approach with a voucher initiative. He lost $20M(estimated) and the election.
If anybody who has connections to Silicon Valley money would like to work them on behalf of our common survival in the form of a PAC/mass action political organization, my e-mail address is here, use it.
This time, I'm sure that the money is out there. Ask any of the major corporate suits who got reamed by Hollings and company in the hearings discussing SSSCA. I'm sure they'd love to get a piece of the Senators who harassed them.
That's something Geekpac isn't set up to do for them and for us and I'm certain they know it.
Geekpac has done an excellent job of defining the issues in more or less comprehensible form. The heavy lifting has got to be done by political operatives capable of simplifying their points into sound bites.
If Geekpac is really the best the high-tech community can do, figure out where Microsoft and Sun and IBM will be moving and if need be, learn the native language.
The alphabet soup legislation in Congress will eliminate our ability to make this money and for practical purposes, our ability to make meaningful political statements.
We are fortunate that at least we have one major political party taking our side on this issue because the entertainment media didn't think the GOP worth buying.
If we're to have a chance at economic survival and probably, the survival of democracy of America, we have to hold our nose and vote our wallets. Ignore their positions on abortion, the environment, civil rights for gays, ignore everything but the issues that matter to our survival as a nation.
Hollywood started this fight.
Our options are to win it or to migrate to wherever else in the world high-tech industry will be moving to and watch America slide into the Third World.
The good news: Targeting one or two key Democrats isn't going to change the balance of power all that much. It will mainly scare the hell out of those that Hollywood bought so cheaply.
Excellent. Let me add that TechNet,the PAC for major suits is mainly a lobbying organization intended for things like making sure H1B gets renewed...
The high-tech community has a chance of turning our anger and fear into real political power. Who around here knows some of the suits that have had the joy of trying to explain why destructive regulation of technology is A BAD THING to clueless elected officials?
I think they are a logical place to start passing the hat.
The people who bought his votes are from California. The entertainment industry doesn't have any sort of noticeable presence in SC. There's nothing like telling the voters that their representative has been bought by a bunch of 'furriners' to make them wonder who he's working for.
I'd also say that there are a lot more IT professionals (if you include MCSEs) in SC than 5... if one goes into a small business in SC, one sees computers just like anywhere else in the USA.
Speaking as a Californian, I regard targeting Dianne Feinstein as a wonderful idea.
The problem is money in either case. I think a PAC intended for EFFECTIVE political action... one intended to turn our enemies into roadkill could get the same kind of support from both rank and file AND from manufacturers that the NRA does and gets the same kind of respect that the NRA does.
I regared single issue politics as divisive, but I think that's the price we have to pay as a nation and a high-tech community for economic survival.
We can consciously decide to play hardball or we can "fight the good fight" and get our asses kicked and those of us who manage to emigrate to where the new high-tech action is can discuss the "good old days" of American IT over a beer.
These bills are just as big a threat to the IT megacorporations as they are to us.
Hint:In ths SSSCA hearings, Microsoft, IBM, Apple and a long list of the biggest names in high tech testified against the bill. How often are these companies on the same side of anything?
Their VPs had to sit and take having ignorant assholes like Hollings and Feinstein accuse them of being pro-piracy, pro-terrorism, and anti-American. You don't think these companies and their executives as individuals wouldn't be willing contribute towards an effort to give these crapheads what they deserve?
You don't think the high-tech companies of America don't want enough political power to keep the Feds out of their business and ours? This is a crusade I'd sign on to even if Bill Gates were leading it and the only candidates that could be found were Religious Right troglodytes.
if you pick on one of Hollywood's bought and paid for politicians, you are **picking on Hollywood**. There is no way that we could ever do political ads that are as slick, as decietful, and unfortunately, as effective as they could
You apparently are under the delusion that the only talent capable of making superior commercials in in Hollywood. Do you also believe that the only people capable of writing workable operating systems are in Redmond? If you do, what are you doing here?
There are plenty of unknown independents in media who don't like the monopolies any more than we do. There are plenty of name musicians who know they've been screwed by major labels. I don't know we can get superior entertainment talent both in front of and behind the camera... but I am certain we can get parity.
I'd back Courtney Love against Cher for star appeal any day... she's declared open season on the record industry. She's just the first example that came to mind... and people under 30 are a lot more likely to remember who she is than Cher.
"It's the economy, stupid!"
More to the point, it's them or us. If you're willing to lie there and get raped without even trying to fight, that's up to you.
and they would retaliate. Does anyone believe they are somehow above lying and namecalling?
And this scares you for what reason? Given equal money, the truth is easier to sell.
Mobilization of the high tech community as a whole means we can outraise and outspend Hollywood. Our economic base is over 10x theirs, our employment base is a hell of a lot bigger.
You think that all of South Carolina does their accounting with pencil and paper?You think there are no South Carolina Internet servers? Hey, they may be Southern but that doesn't make them Stone Age or stupid. Get the point across to them that their beloved incumbent will ratfuck their part of the national economy, he will lose.
This isn't about the GeekPAC approach of "fighting the good fight" and being noble in defeat, this is about winning at any price.
Our future really IS at stake this time.
I am indeed willing to go single issue, to allow this issue to decide my vote if need be. Hollywood has put the survival of high technology on the line and I see no reason to take it.
This time around, abortion and environment and civil rights have to take a back seat, the entertainment industry bought the Democratic party dirt cheap. They didn't have sense enough to buy the GOP as well. I propose we make them pay for that mistake.
I hope I'm not the only person to have been saying in private what Hal Plotkin has said in public.
"Growing digital rights movement needs to put some political heads on stakes -- fast" says it all.
Fuck being polite and friendly about this. We can kick ass and take names or we can figure on moving overseas if we want to continue creating.
I've made my choice. It's time to make yours.
If GeekPAC figures out what its good for, we can use it to implemet our will against the Senators from Disney. If they can't, we need new organizations run by the poltically competent.
Keeping this kind of privacy-authentication information in a way to create a "single point of failure" is bad enough.
Using Microsoft's technology for this given their well-known total incompetence in the area of computer security to collect and secure information ON BEHALF OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is so far beyond 'bad business decision' that I am not writing this for your benefit, you're either a clueless fuckhead or a Micro$hit employee.
I'm writing this to clarify what's at stake here to slashdotters with working brains.
I am not in this position, either, so I attached an 'I don't know' tag to copies of the URL I just sent to my friends for reasons having to do with intellectual honesty.
All we know assuming the article is accurate is that reputable researchers both agree and disagree with the professor about this.
All your getting modded up to 5 shows is that at least 3 slashdotters didn't stay awake in any of their science classes long enough to catch a clue about scientific methodology.
The default password access page could easily be bypassed by anyone who knew the directory tree and the IP address of the workstation / UPS.
This was fixed a few weeks after the article came out for some reason.
Take a careful look at the software for ANY Web-controlled devices (including routers and toasters) for ugly surprises before running it on your network.
Perhaps the Chinese had the same problem and decided to spin the PR the same way.
However, I hope this is not true and look forward to welcoming China to the "Man in Space" club.
Of course, it would be nice to know that NASA is responding with the nanotube-based space elevator project or an orbital-speed railgun to allow undercutting China's prices by a factor of a few hundred and their own current pricing by a factor of a few thousand.
Is there anybody on slashdot who believes that the inventors of the DMCA would take that kind of risk under circumstances where the kid could bail on the contract and leave the record company on the hook required to pull all the entertainer's albums out of stores because he/she changed his/her mind?
I hope the kid waits until his code has been distributed on a million or two Macs before he demands that his code be pulled.
I don't think it was intended to be. This reads more like an subtle unofficial comment / warning shot from the owner of Fox intended to let Hollings know that Fox is NOT part of the content provider coalition backing SSSCA and that any further support from Fox either in terms of favorable coverage or campaign contributions is at risk if Hollings doesn't pull the bill.
The most interesting thing about the article is that a major content provider allowed it to run, and probably went to a fair amount of trouble a writer with credentials who would be guaranteed to go after SSSCA and its author given the opportunity.
Perhaps they're mad at Disney, perhaps they decided that the results would be so unpopular that they didn't want to be part of a group of multinationals facing a very angry public.
Perhaps they read the SSSCA the same way as I do, as a bill mandating that all computers (including routers) carry crap components which will directly interfere with their usability, reliability, and stability AND with the functioning of the Internet.
I could be reading too much into this, but as I said, the most interesting fact is that it ran at all.
So does 98lite.
> If what you want is Windows 95, use Windows 95.
You have something against the idea of customizing an OS so it'll do what you want it to do? I want something that'll run the MS Office apps I'm using to communicate with the rest of the business world with a bit less overhead and more stability than 98SE out of the box.
Using 98lite, I got what I wanted. Office 97 runs fine and so do all the apps I have occasion to use. With respect to XP, while it might matter with respect to implementing an antitrust settlement, I could personally care less about 98lite being made to work with XP, while it's probably possible, my next upgrade to this box is to *nix (Lycoris looks good, but OpenBSD does, too). 98lite serves my needs pending my deciding that enough *nix apps are ready for me to make the switch.
quote from the manual with 98lite
98micro (Professional Edition Only)
98mirco completely eliminates the Microsoft HTML engine (SHDOCVW.DLL, and MSHTML.DLL). You can not run any program that relies on this IE Engine; e.g. Outlook Express, FrontPage, and MS Money are out. But a system with Apache, Netscape, Opera, Pegasus Mail, Gravity, Agent etc. would be just fine! Microsoft Office 97 will install and run beautifully under 98micro!
Our tests and diagnostics suggests that 98micro can be 15% to 20% faster than a stock Windows 98 installation.
See the 98lite.net Performance Page
http://www.98lite.net/perform.html for details.
If you find an application that does not work under 98micro, it's possible that:
it requires the MS HTML Engine and you'll have to abandon that application or use the ShellSwap feature of 98lite to swap to a shell containing the IE engine (SLEEK, CHUBBY, or OVERWEIGHT)
a file is simply missing; you may be able to isolate the problem to the specific file and reinstall it (this is common and most often the result of uninstalling applications)
That's the idea.
I use Opera and Netscape instead.
If you're running Windows 9.x-2000, I suggest you back up your machine completely and then give the MSIE install a try. You should get both satisfactory proof that Ballmer lied AND a better-running computer. Usual warning, your mileage may vary...
As for XP, while MS may have done a better job at kludging IE into the OS to make it harder to untangle this time, I'm sure a development contract to the people at 98lite plus access to the Windows API will result in a very fast and clean solution to the problem.